A parenthesis here to tell a brief story of what happened to Ian recently, in his grieving process.
Since our trip to Disney, or maybe even a bit before, Ian started saying ‘I want Daddy’, almost in an idle way when he was tired, or between two different subjects. At first, I didn’t know what to say but quickly I realized the way he was using it and started asking him what he meant by that. I also asked him if he knows what death means. He then explained to me, numerous time, what death means and that he knew he couldn’t have Daddy back.
It took him a couple of weeks, maybe, but he changed his request to something more ‘reasonable’. Well, it was not really a request but a fact: ‘I miss Daddy’. That one was easy! I miss him too. And we will miss him until the end of our lives. Then one day, after our trip, we were getting ready to go to the daycare and he said he was missing Daddy again. I told him that he was not the only one and started explaining to him that Ricardo was his grandma’s little boy and she was missing him big time.
I think he was surprised to the fact that he was not the only one and started asking me a couple of questions. It was quite interesting to tell him, when he was ready to understand it, that his feeling of longing is common to a few people who loves Ricardo maybe as much as he does. Missing someone is a good feeling and we have it even if the person is still alive but doesn’t live close to us – of course it is a different feeling as you can have the hope to see the person again, which doesn’t happen when someone died.
I think he got it and understood that we will carry this feeling for the rest of our lives. As much as we miss Ricardo, life goes on in a beautiful way. And I strongly believe that we have his blessings…